Time to Wake Up
by SighingWinter
Summary: The price of victory is always a high one and when reality blurs with past memories and faint dreams Chosokabe and Mori meet up for one last breath..


_**Your Collar- Beautiful Chinese Music**_**  
>watch?v=WbNG5615iro<strong>

**Lyrics:**

**The image of your vibrant green collar preoccupies me  
>Even if I never met you. That's why you end things with me<strong>

**The jasper hue of your clothing is haunting me**

**Even if I never met you. Why couldn't you come to me?**

**Standing on the gate tower, I look into the distance with great anxiety**

**Day seem so long without you beside me**

**Standing on the gate tower, I look into the distance with great anxiety**

**Days have been so long without you beside me**

Pairing: Motonari Mori/Chosokabe Motochika

It was a victory, born upon the back of the greatest sacrifice. The dead and dying littered the blood stained grass, though perhaps a more apt term is grass drowned by the blood of creatures that claimed at one point to be human. A sky, whose sunlight was blocked by roiling cloud, opened in a relentless stream. Tears for the dead, the dying, and for those who could no longer cry- for themselves or for those they'd lost.

War had made ruins of these men. War had opened hearts and torn from children their innocence. Yet despite its horrors it would continue until one could end the countless slaughter by uniting the land once more.

It was on this field that a man, once of great stature and daring, now weak and dying as his lifeblood spilled from a deep wound, angry red against skin tanned from days spent under the sun and amidst the seas. His lone grey eye starred up at the weeping sky, expression blank.

It hurt, he wouldn't deny that he'd expected it to hurt and the pain to slowly consume him until the eternal rest swept him in it's arms. And yet it was wrong… where were the roiling waves and the scent of salted water? Where was the deck beneath him? The silence…this was surely the end. No waves beating against the hull, no crackling of sails against the winds, no movements, just stillness and silence, broken only by the rain.

Was that a vibration? Movement- someone was near and yet his hand remained loose on his anchor. Clinking of paneled armor, plates almost silent but deafening in the silence of the battlefield.

A sound…his name murmured so lowly that he would have missed it had he been aboard ship.

Grey eye opened and a small smile wiped away his blank expression. "Mori… you're here."

Dark eyes looked down at him, unusually filled with emotion, so easy to read despite the blank face. The strategist wouldn't like that, but the pirate couldn't make his throat seem to work to tease his longtime rival.

"I am." How long had the slim man been kneeling, Chosokabe wondered, the thought flitting through his brain before it was gone in the whisper of robes and armor.

"A dream then."

And hand so much smaller and softer than his own, grasped one of his gloved hands. Was there time? He wondered, eye flicking to watch pale skin against green silk.

"I dream so often now… don't know what's real." He rumbled and thought of a moment that that phantom hand in his own tightened and lines emerged on that expressionless face as eyes narrowed anxiously.

"Never did say though… suits you. Green… memories or dreams…that color was always…always there."

Lips, ones that he love to kiss and to feel pressed against his skin opened and his forced his hand to move, slow though it was. Rough skin and leather pressed against the smooth pale skin of Mori's cheek. Dark silk slid against the black of his hand, in a ghost whisper.

"this strange dream…usually I'm quicker…"

Why did the air feel so heavy? Had it always weighed so much? A slow blink and green was back. He never wanted it to leave, but darkness was edging his vision now. He would have to wake up soon. Something felt final about this dream though, it was strange but the words… he had to say the words.

"…d'you know….days last month when you're not near….? So strange… made me feel weak at first…"

There were other voices now in the background, other people drifting at the edges of his senses. There were never other people in his dreams with Mori. Reality then? Or was this a memory?

A voice sharp and calm, familiar yet so far, drew him away from the encroaching darkness and the lone eye focused back on the green.

"..come to me… why could you come to me?" he murmured, "…but I knew…you were far away… wrapped in land and sunlight…"

The air was so heavy, so...so…heavy, but the darkness would make it end. It would end the dream and he would wake once more on his ship and far away from the arms that pressed him close. But it was time to wake up now, his brothers would need him.

"Chosokabe!"

Grey eye opened, dimly focusing on the deepening colors. Mori had never worn emerald hues but for a moment the silver haired pirate thought that he would look like a deity in such colors.

"I cant stay Mori… but I will see you soon…. In dreams…"

One last breath, to once more catch the faint memory of Mori's scent and strengthen it before he sighed and closed his eye.

It was time to wake up.


End file.
